December 18, 2023: Fall Semester Finds: Nguyen’s Novel in Capstone

[For myannual Fall semester reflections series, I wanted to share some of the newtexts and ideas I encountered this semester. I’d love to hear things youdiscovered or rediscovered this Fall in comments!]

It’spretty rare, here in my 19th year at Fitchburg State (and 24thof college teaching overall), to get to teach a text I’ve never taught before.It’s even rarer to teach one that I haven’t had the chance to read in fullprior to teaching it—and maybe that’s not recommended pedagogical practice, butit’s also a way to guarantee that I will get to read books I’ve been wanting to!That’s exactly what I was able to do in my EnglishStudies Capstone course this semester, assigning as the Literature work (Idivided the readings in that class up into the different concentrations in ourEnglish Studies Major) Eric Nguyen’s novel ThingsWe Lost to the Water (2021). I loved Nguyen’s book, particularly theway he weaves together its two distinct yet interconnected settings of Vietnamand New Orleans (not entirely unlike one of my favorite songs, Springsteen’s “GalvestonBay”). But what I loved even more was that when we came up with a handfulof questions as a class that we wanted to ask Nguyen, he responded thoughtfullyand at great length, offering these graduating English Studies students (manyof them professional writers in training) a vital perspective as well as amodel for remaining approachable and engaging at every stage of our careers.

Next Fallfind tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other Fall finds you’d share?